TO: ALL WOOD COUNTY ARES MEMBERS (OFFICIAL)
ALL ARES AND NON-ARES AMATEURS ANYWHERE (INFORMATION)
FROM: KEN HARRIS WA8LLM ARRL DISTRICT 3
EMERGENCY COORDINATOR WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS INC.
WOOD COUNTY ARES BULLETIN NR 18.22 DATE: June 3, 2018
SUBJECT: EXPECT THE LOSS OF SERVICE
This bulletin isn't written to scare you into thinking that something severe is going to happen. It's written to let you know that sometimes things happen to help make service better. Utility companies such as telephone, power, gas, and water try to keep their service constant, but things happen that cause them to be interrupted, such as storms, traffic accidents, natural and other man made problems. When this happens the utility companies try to get the service restored as soon as possible. The utility companies also cause the interruption of service, to change or better your service, but most of the time they forewarn you that it's going to happen. The gas, electric, water, and power companies, either stop by the houses that will be involved, or mail out a notice of service interruption.
The telephone companies try to do their interruptions when most people are asleep, between midnight and six o'clock in the morning. There's no time that's convenient for everyone, so you just have to expect the unexpected.
If your electric power goes off doesn't mean that you are going to lose your telephone service, although it sometimes happens. Some telephone equipment relies on commercial power when it is located in rural areas. The telephone equipment has back-up batteries that should allow operation for at least eight hours, but that sometimes doesn't work. Also if you lose commercial power, and you are using a cordless type telephone, it could be dead because it may be operated on your electric service.
The loss of electric and telephone service could be associated, depending on what caused them to be interrupted, such as a tree falling across the lines. The interruption of water, gas, and telephone service, could be interrupted, if, there were a land slide, or someone was digging and hit the services which are buried. It's unlikely that all services will be interrupted at the same time, but it could happen.
The best thing to do is stay calm, and try to figure what has happened. If a severe storm just went through the area, it's possible a tree fell into the service. If there was a hard rain storm, high, fast moving water may have caused the earth to slip causing gas, water, or buried telephone line to be damaged. In any case there will be times when your utility service will be interrupted, and you'll just have to be prepared to work around it.
Ken Harris WA8LLM
WCEC
Wood County WV